March 18, 2025
Episode 215 – Marques Colston – Built for the Team Win, Powered by Integrity
“You do realize that in order for the team to win everyone has to be moving in lock step and there has to be enough complementary pieces for you to be able to execute your strategy. There are no one man bands that are going and winning Super Bowls.” – Marques Colston
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- A seasoned business leader, Marques Colston’s business career is shaped by the perspectives and lived experiences gained from his journey to becoming an unlikely NFL standout.
- Marques’s journey from small school prospect through a decade-long NFL career taught him how success has to be earned every day and sustaining it at the highest level requires a humility that allows you to be an active learner, curiosity to explore new ways to unlock value, and confidence built on preparation and repetition.
- This philosophy is the foundation of Marques’s post-football journey as an entrepreneur, educator, financial advisor, executive coach, and strategic consultant for dozens of companies – from startups to Fortune 100.
- His diverse path is connected by the vision to empower underserved and underestimated communities, helping them envision and achieve beyond their current limitations. Champion Venture Capital (CVP) represents an opportunity for Marques to leverage his passion, skills, influence, and access to build a firm with the potential to build a legacy of doing well and good, by creating access to wealth-building opportunities to a more diverse group of investors
- Listen in as Marques and Patrick dive into mindset shifts, creating pathways to build and preserve wealth, and the offerings of Champion Venture Partners through education and investment. Marques describes how the inspiration from his father, a renaissance man, planted the seed for his own hands-on entrepreneurial endeavors and how that has shown up in every aspect of his career. Marques shares his values, the power of a strong and complementary team, and what drove him to first get his Financial Planner licenses and then create the investment vehicle of CVP. At the heart of it all for Marques are 3 pillars – integrity, the team-win, and consistently showing up.
- Show Notes
- [00:42] Patrick introduces his next TEDM guest Marques Colston.
- [01:47] Marques and Patrick dive right into their conversation about Marques’ current venture with Champion Venture Partners focused on the value chain of sports. Their portfolio is based around the whole sports ecosystem – real estate, hospitality, sports medicine, fan engagement technology as examples.
- [05:00] CVP is a more passive vehicle for investors who want exposure to the sport ecosystem without having to go out and find individual deals. Marques talks about CVP’s unique value proposition and what they excel in.
- [07:08] Marques provides a tangible example to explain the types of businesses they are interested to pursue and grow for investment and how long they’ve been doing it. They are building the foundation.
- [10:50] Entering and exiting the NFL. Marques shares a bit of his background, when he started playing in the NFL and what led him down this business path post-football career.
- [14:11] Being so immersed in the sports network for over 15 years and having exposure to venture capital opportunities a few years into his career, Marques saw the opportunity to create something more and different than being stuck in a brand ambassador role. He wanted to dig in.
- [15:52] Coming from a team culture that was firmly embedded from the age of 7, Marques understands what it takes and has built a team with complementary talent to execute their strategy. There was no singular guy going out and winning Super Bowls!
- [18:43] Marques shares their mission and what prompted him to create the concept of CVP. The “problem” or gap he was looking to solve for investors. Their core purpose is providing access.
- [21:50] What is the point of entry for investors and how is CVP working with investors to find the right fit for their financial situation? Marques discusses their model for timeframes and liquidity.
- [26:29] Patrick talks about moving away from fiat currency to owning assets (bitcoin, real estate, precious metals, art as examples.) What CVP offers is an opportunity to invest in assets in sport and sport adjacent industries. An extremely resilient industry at that.
- [30:50] Marques explains the prospects historically reserved for professional athletes’ post-career and the different ways CVP aims to expand and generate other possibilities to thrive.
- [34:23] Interested in investing? You can go to the CVP landing page to join the waiting list. You will get more information as they work to get the Evergreen Fund online. Check out the links above!
- [35:52] Marques attributes his entrepreneurial spirit to observing his father, who Marques calls a renaissance man. His dad was involved in construction, real estate, was a “community dad’ and coach. Marques was inspired by his dad’s ability to build whatever he wanted by digging in and creating it with his own hands from scratch. Marques describes how that planted a seed for how he operates today.
- [38:25] Laser focus. Marques shares what his mindset was, going into the NFL. Future state was not on his mind, but becoming a great player was. He did realize that creating value on the field was the launch pad to open all the doors he needed.
- [40:49] Marques discusses how things have changed for a lot of players with their sudden access to great wealth at a young age. The thing that hasn’t, are the people who create a skillset in extracting money from young people without the best interest of the player.
- [43:50] With that in mind and with first-hand experience, Marques felt driven to get his licenses to become a financial planner and be of service in a positive way for professional athletes and entertainers. Through CVP they aim to provide that support and in as much as they can within compliance, create new ways to build and preserve wealth for their clients through education and investment.
- [47:56] Who does Marques want to be known as and what would he want people to say about him 10 years down the road in the world of business? He has 3 pillars.
- [49:48] Similarly, what would Marcus want his clients to say about working with and investing with CVP?
- [51:05] Running with the rapid fire: Android or Apple; favourite music genre; favourite movie; impactful books; a fork in the road moment; favourite swear word; message at the pearly gates.
- [58:36] Marques’ gratitude.
- Selected links and people mentioned from this episode:
- Champion Venture Partners (CVP)
- The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Connect with REIN Canada
- REIN Canada
- [email protected]
- REIN Channel
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